THIRTY-SIX
JORDIE
Callum’s bathroom is very Callum: minimal, spotless, and organized with the kind of precision that suggests even his shampoo has an anesthetic plan.
The shower rains down, a steady drumbeat. It does nothing to ease the ache I always feel after I see my mother, where I leave feeling thirteen all over again—awkward, weird, and unpretty. Like all the wrong pieces in all the wrong places.
But then Callum looks at me like I’m stardust in a jar. Like I’m worth it. And maybe I just want to exist inside that gaze a little longer, before the world says otherwise.
I hear the faint creak of the bathroom door. Callum stands there, polo clinging to his chest, hair tousled in a way where he’s probably run his fingers through it too many times. Rugged and boyish. Soft and hard. All at once.
“Is this another refresher course?” he asks.
A laugh stirs in my chest but escapes more breath than sound. “Maybe.”
He steps forward, stripping as he goes. Shirt first, tugged over his head with one hand and tossed to the floor.
“I hear hands-on practice is the most effective way to learn,” he says, his fingers going to his fly, dragging it down slowly. Metal rasping. Fabric sliding. “Happy to demonstrate. For the sake of thoroughness.”
“Far be it from me to turn down an expert.”
I turn into the water, letting it sheet over my face and down my body—a wordless invitation. Mint and cedar rise sharper when he gets closer, warm skin and steam that’s somehow become its own kind of undoing.
The shower door slides open. A rush of cool air grazes my back before the heat of him replaces it. I lean back, surrendering to the solid wall of his chest.
His hand slides up, slow as sin, curling around my jaw with the kind of certainty that says he’s imagined this over and over, in too many empty hours in dark rooms.
His thumb brushes my cheekbone, palm hot against my throat. He turns my head. Our mouths crash together. Water dripping. Tongue sliding. Teeth catching. Breath mixing. Like we’re tasting every unspoken thing between us.
He sucks my bottom lip between his teeth. I open wider. He pushes in deeper.
He’s a wall of lined muscles—abs flexing against my spine, thighs braced behind mine, cock pushing high against me. I feel the shape of him—the thick shaft and the blunt weight of it drags against the top swell of my ass with every shift of my hips.
I grind back, hard.
He twitches. Shudders. Mouth dropping to my shoulder, then lower. He licks at the water pooling in the hollow of my collarbone with a long, slow stroke of his tongue.
“Cruel little thing,” he murmurs, breath thick.
I roll my hips again, chasing his cock. Pushing back into him, trying to line us up where I want him.
He growls. One sharp, guttural sound. His hands clamp down on my hips, holding me still.
“No,” he mutters. “Not yet.”
His hand slides up, wet skin skimming over my stomach, then higher. He palms my breast, fingers rolling over and over my nipple until it’s pebbled.
The other hand drops lower.
Between my thighs.
Spreading my folds open. Fingers sliding inside, buried to the knuckles. The heel of his palm digs unimaginable pressure against my clit. Every time he slides in and out, the bones of his wrist drag against me. Deep pressure. Wet friction. Fast rhythm.
“Callum—oh, Cal—” It’s not even a word anymore. Just sound. Need.
He cups my breast hard. Fingers splayed wide. Thumb and index catch my nipple. Roll it. Pinch, then twist. At the same time, he curls his finger inside me.
I jolt. Hips twitching. Breath hitching. Nails digging into the muscles of his forearms.
“That’s it,” he says, breath hot on my cheek. “Let me feel you come apart on my hand.”
Everything tightens, then splinters. Pleasure strikes like lightning down my spine. His name rips from my throat, hoarse and broken, echoing off the tiles.
I don’t wait for my pleasure to ebb. I turn to face him. My fingers slip into the wet mess of his hair. I tug him down. Our mouths collide—hot, desperate, all tongue and heat and leftover need. I lose myself in the taste of his groan as it breaks into my mouth.
“Your turn, Callum,” I breathe.
My hands drift lower. Fingers skim the lean, water-slick lines of his chest, over the tight muscles of his abdomen, down to the vee of his hips.
When I wrap my palm around him—hard, heavy, pulsing—he jolts.
His hips shift, chasing the friction. I swirl my thumb over the tip, and I move my hand up and down, a steady pressure. Slow. Then fast. Faster still. Slowing again. Holding him just shy of bliss. Curses slip past his teeth, each broken word a melody as his breath stutters.
“Sweetheart. Hell—” His voice breaks, trembling with need. “You—” He gasps, his stuttered words finally falling into a plea. “Please.”
“Please what, Callum?” I whisper, all breathy sin. “Please be on my knees? Please put your cock into my perfect little mouth?”
His eyes darken instantly, a sharp inhale slipping between his teeth. “Fuck, Jordie.”
Before I can say all the other filthy things I’m dying to do to him, his hand closes around my wrist. He drags it off him, then lifts it to his shoulder.
He grips my hip. Backs me into the wall, chest pressing tight, hard length grinding into my stomach.
There is nothing subtle about the way he wants me now.
“Please,” he breathes, “let me be inside you.”
Then his hips roll, dirty-slow, like he’s making a point.
“Later,” he murmurs, mouth on my throat. “. . . if you’re still so inclined to use that mouth. But right now . . .” He lifts me. My legs lock around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him closer.
His hand moves between us. Wrapping his fingers around himself, he guides the thick head of his cock between my folds. When it drags over my clit—slick, slow, hot—a choked sound tears from my throat.
The blunt tip pushes at my entrance. I stretch around him. Too tight. Too damn perfect. He groans, deep in his chest, and holds still, letting me feel every inch as he sinks deeper.
My body trembles, walls already clenching around him.
“Jordie, sweetheart,” he breathes, voice wrecked. “You feel . . .”
He pushes in further, inch by slow inch. I stretch around him. The burn is real. The angle is deep. Standing like this, he feels even more massive until he bottoms out, buried so far in me, I swear I can feel him in my throat. My head falls helplessly back against the tiles behind me.
“You okay?” His voice is rough-edged, impossibly tender.
“Yes.” The word falls from my mouth, all surrender.
He stays there for a beat, memorizing the moment. Memorizing us. Before his hips pull back and roll forward again.
“Jordie,” he breathes against my ear, curling low in my belly. “You feel like you were made for me.”
He finds a rhythm that straddles the line between reverence and ruin, gentle and demanding. I’m pressed to the wall. Held open. Taken.
His pace builds.
My toes curl and my breath breaks.
Water hammers around us, but I barely recognize it. All I hear are the sounds of his quiet curses, my whispered pleas, and the rhythmic slide of his body against mine.
“Don’t stop,” I plead, the words tumbling out. “Please. Don’t—”
A primal sound rumbles in his chest. He takes my wrists with one hand, lifting them high above my head and pins them to the wall. His grip is unyielding, commanding, but there’s something achingly careful about the way he holds me.
And then he thrusts.
Once. Deep.
Twice. Harder.
A third time, grinding in so deep I feel the tremor ripple through both of us.
My back arches off the wall, knees quivering where they’re wrapped around him. I come with a sound that’s not even a word. Just his name torn from my entrails.
He’s following me over the edge—hips stuttering, forehead pressed to mine, voice hoarse as he groans my name like a confession he’s too far gone to take back. He throbs deep inside me, and for one suspended breath, we’re not two people.
We’re one singular, burning moment.
His grip loosens. I melt into him, arms around his neck, our skin still slick with heat and steam.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he whispers, breathless.
I shake my head, too wrecked for words.
A husky laugh escapes him. “Good, because I’d say that refresher course was pretty thorough.”
A winded laugh slips from me. “Aced it.”
We stay in the shower. Callum reaches for the shampoo and works it gently into my hair. It’s so simple—so tender—that it undoes me more than anything that came before. When he rinses it out, he tips my chin back carefully, making sure not a drop gets in my eyes.
Eventually, we step out. He dries my hair, fingers combing through the damp strands. By the time he’s done, my eyes are heavy, my limbs softened by warmth and comfort, and the strange ache of feeling cared for.
“You’re tired,” he says gently, arms sliding under me.
I don’t argue. My head drops to his shoulder. Eyes already half-closed as he carries me to bed.
He tucks me in. Careful, snug, maddeningly sweet. Then he crosses the room to close the blinds, sealing us in.
“Rest now,” he murmurs, sliding in beside me.
The warmth of him erases every lingering chill. I sink into the quiet of him, the safety, the stillness, the way his arm wraps around me.
Just for today, I’ll let myself have this.
Because the thought’s already there, creeping in through the edges of sleep:Callum doesn’t belong here. His life—his future—is in Sydney. With the family who wants grandkids. With the career that needs his focus.
And me?
I’m the wrong postcode. The wrong girl. The pause between where he’s been and where he’s going.
A stepping stone, not a home.
I swallow hard, turning my face into his chest.
And maybe it’s selfish. But I want to stay here a little longer, just until tomorrow.
Just until I can pretend that I don’t already know how this ends.